One of my friends has spotted herself in Google Street View!

Prize for the first person to identify her*....

*Lizzi, you're not allowed to enter.

I seem to be drinking Nazi Beer

Discovered it in the back fridge of a local off licence the other day. Hoping it doesn't mess with my head whilst I'm asleep, otherwise J may find herself homeless pretty sharpish.

In for the long haul?

Over the weekend, my relationship has survived my nation humiliating hers at football, and a Sunday evening viewing of 'Mamma Mia!'. I believe if we can get through both of those, we can cope with just about anything....

Being healthy rocks.

I'm back in the land of the rumbling stomach once again, after a couple of days feeling decidedly peaky. Following a weekend in the country and a now-hazy conversation around me being a 'typical bloke' round the house, I resolved to start pulling my weight a bit more in the form of cookery. Monday went well - some kind of chicken, tarragon and creme fraiche effort, and I had high hopes for Tuesday - fajitas. I'd arrived at Tesco earlier than normal on Monday following a trip to the doctor (see below) and stocked up on cheap meat from the reduced cabinet - hence we had some steak that needed eating. Clever Tattie, with his soon-to-be-out-of-date meat purchases.

The Mexican food, although over an hour in the making, was surprisingly tasty, if a bit spicy. Imagine my surprise, therefore, when I felt an immediate urge to rush to the bog after finishing. Won't bore you with the details, but no sooner had I delivered fire and brimstone on the unsuspecting toilet, that I felt overwhelmingly nauseous. Going to bed at 9pm did nothing to quell my body's desire to purge through the medium of vomit, and the only positive to come out of the whole sorry, literal, mess is that I timed my visits to the bathroom perfectly, preventing a more pathetic sight than that which ultimately befell me.

In hindsight, the food was probably not to blame, which makes me feel a bit better - J was mercifully unaffected. Had she been, I hate to think what kind of hell-on-earth our bijou and compact city centre apartment might have become.

It's occasions like this which are not considered when young couples decide to move into a flat with the bathroom attached to the bedroom - bless 'er cottons though, J is doing a good job of hiding the look of fear and disgust in her eyes following my repeated puking through the night.

I had to take yesterday and today off work as a result, and there is nothing more depressing than being on your own whilst feeling shit. What happened to the good old days, when throwing a sickie felt like socking it to the man..? I suppose the key there is the "throwing a sickie" part - actually being off ill is rubbish. More so, given that I'm actually quite healthy normally - prior to this my last sick day was a year and a half ago, and before that it was another 18 months. You build up some kind of pride in that, bizarrely.

As you may (or may not) have noticed, my usual banter is severely limited as I struggle back to normality. I can't work out how much of this is down to illness and dehydration, and how much to the 5 hours of E! News that I endured today, due to nothing more than a completely inability to change the channel....

Another milestone passed

In my (seemingly) endless quest for a healthier and longer life, I reached another watershed today - exactly four weeks ago today I smoked a cigarette for the last time before my current period of abstinence. Which, given the convenience of February being four weeks long, means I can now say I have gone a full month without a fag!

Am highly, highly impressed with myself and am currently contorted on the sofa trying to type with one hand whilst patting myself on the back with the other. In a way I can't believe it's only been four weeks; seems like forever. But on the other hand, I am very pleased with how it is becoming less of an issue for me - the habit of looking at the clock at work is passing, to the extent that it turned midday today and I was surprised it was that time already, rather than bolting for an early lunch just to break up the day.

I've been buying the patches myself, partly because I'd been given a month's supply by the doctor a few years ago and failed completely to quit, and this time I felt I owed it to myself to feel the financial pinch to help me on my way. Free stuff just isn't as effective. That, however, was before Superdrug put them up to full price, and I found myself faced with having to pay £13 for a week's supply. £13 is more than I spent on cigarettes when I was smoking, meaning I was more financially disadvantaged giving up than I had been before. Given that saving money is just behind the health benefits on my list of 'pros', something had to be done. As luck would have it, I've managed to give myself an ear infection (my finger fits just a little too perfectly into my ear canal), so I took advantage of an unscheduled but fortuitous trip to the surgery this afternoon to save myself £70 on the remaining 6 weeks worth of nicotine replacement therapy by blagging a generous prescription.

And found out I have ringworm in my leg.

Unrelated to smoking or ear fingering, but shockingly manky nonetheless. Ringworm?!?!?! Isn't that what people in Africa get if they've been pissing in the river? Or cattle?! (As, in, 'don't cattle get it too?', not 'don't African people get it when pissing in cattle?' I'm pretty sure that never happens outside of Gloucester-based specialist 'erotic documentaries').

The doctor, in all seriousness, attempted to ease my obvious disgust by explaining, "it's alright, it's not actually a worm - just a fungal infection".... A fungal feckin infection?! On my leg? That's been there for 6 months?! Rank. Rank rank rank.

Tabloid scum

Feel obliged to post a link to Graham Linehan's blog post about the shocking story the Scottish Sunday Express ran about the survivors of the Dunblane massacre. He explains things far more eloquently than I ever could, but suffice to say that the paper has impressively managed to publish a story more repulsive, inaccurate and hysterical than any of the Scottish Sun, Daily Record, Mirror or Daily Mail have managed between them. Which takes some doing. And I'm including the time the Daily Record published a picture of my friend's dead brother in a double page spread about heroin deaths in Scotland, without consulting the family and despite the fact the kid had never taken heroin in his life. What concerns me, as it always has when seeing some of the tabloid headlines over the years, is that the editors of these papers obviously feel that their readership will have an interest in, and appreciation of, these types of non-stories.

Read the story here and please sign up to through the various suggested mediums if you feel as strongly about this kind of repugnant, irresponsible and disgusting 'journalism' as I do. Apologies to all actual journalists for using that word to describe it.

Le Tracteur

I know I'm posting a lot of ads at the moment (testament to my increasing TV consumption) but saw this the other day for the first time and I love it. At first it just got me all nostalgic for the ads they ran when I was growing up, even though it seemed so totally, Frenchly, up its own arse. And then they go and rinse it by adding in the bit at the end. Genius!

Some of the funniest British comedians of the last 10 years

The other two are James Corden & Matthew Horne, a low rent tribute act milking their 5 minutes of fame for all its worth, to the extent of ripping off "Shaun of the Dead" with their imaginative Lesbian Vampire flick.

Following on from Mitchell & Webb's example in 2007, they're absolutely bloody everywhere at the moment, spreading their brand of not-very-funny comedy every time you turn on the TV.

Please take a leaf out of M&W's book and retreat gracefully (or at least quickly) from the public eye for a bit - just because Simon Pegg and Nick Frost managed to follow up Spaced with Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz etc doesn't mean it automatically follows that everyone with a marginally successful comedy show is going to be the 21st century equivalent of Morecambe and Wise. That requires more than luck and constant over-exposure. I didn't start off disliking Corden & Horne - I even watched "30 things to do before you're 30" or whatever it was called, but they actually seem to believe they're the saviours of British comedy at the moment.

It must be hard with everyone massaging your ego and I can't pretend I would probably do it any different in their position, but I plea from the safety and comfort of my insignificant soap box - give it up, get Rob Brydon and Ruth Jones (yes Corden, you're classed as co-writer of Gavin & Stacey, but adding some authentic Essex dialogue to the script doesn't qualify you as a modern day Oscar Wilde) to write you some good material and come back in a few years when we've all forgotten about you again. It's for the best.

My boss took us out for Guinness at lunchtime.

Unfortunately, as token Irishman, this is the pay off he insisted I provide.

3 weeks without a fag

Seems like a hella lot longer. Wondering how long it can be before I lapse. The combination of sun, beer garden and San Miguel yesterday did not bode well, but I hung on. My mouth still tastes like a tramp's armpit though. Wondering how long it's going to take before I start reaping the benefits of my healthier lifestyle, if only because I can have a sneaky tab to celebrate.

Glitz and Glamour

J's working in Hampstead at the moment, and happened across Noel Gallagher on her lunch break today, having a drink in a pub beer garden. This follows up her serving Mike Skinner a pint and IDing youthful Dundonians 'The View' when she worked in the pub.

So unfair - I work in Islington which is resolutely celeb-free, but even when I plied my trade in the 'edgy and vibrant' East End and ever-fashionable West End I never saw anyone of note. Well, I say never - my list of famous faces is as follows, over the 6 years I've lived in this fine city:

Bez from the Happy Mondays: stumbling past a bar I was in, in Hoxton Square.
Chris Eubank: getting a haircut in Brixton.
Sven Goran Eriksson: on the Strand.
Gloria Hunniford: also on the Strand, obviously a hotbed of excitement.
Tracy Emin: outside a pub in Spitalfields.

Pretty damn impressive, eh? Not even averaging one a year. There have been other people I've recognised without having previously met them, such as 'City Boy' - a former clandestine banker who wrote an Insider column for a local free newspaper, before believing he was worthy of fame and quitting his job. Will leave it up to you to decide how that one panned out. His name's Geraint something-or-other. I almost went up to him and told him what an arse I thought he was. But my apathy was such that I couldn't even be bothered.

I got more celebs per square mile when I lived at home, and saw local football commentating stalwart and bon vivuer Jackie Fullerton on a regular basis.

This isn't how it was supposed to be.....

Ever wondered what the posh bit of the new Airbus A380 looks like?

For those of us who will never earn anywhere near enough to see it first hand, that nice Stephen Fry has Tweeted a pic (he's en route from London to Singapore as I type). http://twitpic.com/25xwv

Who says Twitter is a meaningless waste of time?

Oi'll get in early

And say happy Saint Paddy's day for tomorrow, to be sure, so it is....

This year will probably be the first since about 2001 that I don't hit a pub somewhere - credit crunchedness and a payday on the 18th of the month means I have hit rock bottom of the old bank account. I saw a couple of moths stumbling about in ski masks in my wallet this morning muttering about "one big job" and then escaping to Rio. It seems everyone has their tipping point.

I have, however, come up trumps in the lottery after many years of trying, so good times are ahead! Yep, Twelve (I double checked) of your crisp, English pounds, if you please. Am undecided what to spend it on - was thinking a ferrari-boat, but might settle for a pint of the black stuff instead. It's what it would have wanted.

On a lighter note...

...whilst Rome (or Belfast. Or Alabama. Or Winnenden) burns, the world carries on, inevitably, as normal. Which, in my case, entails having endless rants in my head about the multitude of things that wind me up.

Obese people, for instance. Not only do they take up twice the pavement and walk at half the pace of normal people - they also compound their spatial selfishness by being unable to hang their chubby ham hocks vertically down by their sides when they waddle, resulting in their piggy big arms swinging wildly out into the thoroughfare at a 45 degree angle as they desperately try to propel themselves with the speed, grace and turning circle of an oil tanker towards the nearest fried chicken shop.

If David Cameron, Nick Clegg, or whoever replaces Gordon Brown wants my vote at the next election, this is what I want to happen.

I want to see everyone with a BMI of 25+ shipped off to a centralised holding ghetto (perhaps somewhere like Swansea can be cleared for them as a kind of Escape from New York-era Manhattan). Gladiators-style travelators installed in every pie-muncher's home, tilted at a 60 degree angle, so that they have to puff and pant their way to the top to make it out of the door. Only to then find that the nearest takeaway has been shifted 5 miles away to an out-of-town shopping outlet, all the cars are now G-Whizzes, public transport doors are only 30 inches wide and a pack of hungry, rabid dogs is waiting in the street to devour any slow moving, moist, flabby flesh. The only way out is to slim down enough to fit through one of the narrow slits in the perimeter fence (which, err, surprisingly the dogs are unable to get through).

Go on politicians - where's yer balls?! Put the public's health first for once, or at the very least leave this great nation's streets to the young, attractive members of the population. By default, the vast majority of these slobbering, wheezing, marshmallows are from lower income families, meaning that 'real' Britain will become a university-educated utopia where Chavs are mythical creatures used to scare small children into behaving and everyone eats falafel bought from Farmers Markets and reads the Guardian.

As you can probably tell, this has been bubbling up progressively in my angry bank for some time; living in the centre of London's Zone 2 means I have lost countless minutes behind the puffing, panting mobile roadblocks. I'm in a general angry mood at the moment because of the feelings of injustice and impotence regarding the Northern Ireland situation, which has resulted in the cork popping on this particular subject.

I was thinking of maybe going out and shooting an innocent civilian or two to make myself feel better, but then hit on the novel idea of writing it down for the public to peruse and see if I had any popular support for my views. A totally bizarre and previously unheard of concept I know, but it might just work. Of course, if no one agrees with me, I may have to undertake some internal reflection and conclude that perhaps it's me who's in the wrong - not the 1.5 million other people who've been asked their opinion and rejected my viewpoint outright.

Belfast looks beautiful on the ITV 10 o'clock news

perhaps not right to focus on that, but it does in a way show how far things have come that the area around the City Hall can provide such a stunning backdrop to the news report.

Equally impressive is the rhetoric coming from all sides and all parties - it's hard to believe that these are the same politicians who used to make me squirm with embarrassment when they were on TV. Who earned their salaries for doing nothing for several years because they couldn't even agree on an agenda for the first meeting of the Ni Assembly when they were elected. Gone are the days of Bob McCartney shouting verbal abuse across the street at an opponent whilst out campaigning, or the fist-gnawing intransigence of both sides when it came to sharing a meeting room or stage with each other.

The biggest indication that we might not go back to where we came from is from the professional, controlled, moderate comments coming from Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness on the steps of Hillsborough today. I only hope that they can continue down the road we finally made it to without any deluded psychos getting in the way.

The only positive thing

Coming out of Northern Ireland at the moment is the universal condemnation of what's been going on over the past 72 hours, with 3 people dead. Even traditional enemies are standing together with a common voice. Whether it will be enough to stop the current events remains to be seen. I think it's safe to say that everyone hopes so, but no one really believes it. Can only hope.

Go me. .

I'm drinking this evening, alone, in toast to the fact that I am 31 years old, have been graduated from university for 9 years, and still don't earn enough money to have to start paying back my student loans. A remarkable feat of non-realisation of potential that I didn't think possible back at the dawn of this brave new millenium. I'm very proud.

Dark days

At Christmas, I was sitting in the car park in Sainsbury's and watched a police car come in, park, and a lone uniformed officer get out. As he walked towards the supermarket I tried to put my finger on why I found it so out of the ordinary and realised that - only a few years ago - you would never have seen a marked police car or a lone uniformed officer walking the streets of Northern Ireland.

It struck me as a very positive thing that such a mundane sight was now the norm in our wee country, a sign of how far things had progressed in 10 years. Only last week, the main bone of contention reported by the BBC news website was that council workers were unhappy that their department name was written in both English and Gaelic on their uniforms. The kind of relatively mundane dispute that troubles companies the world over - like the National Express "see through blouse" debate a few weeks earlier.

Coming home from the pub last night, my heart sank into my boots with the sight that greeted me when I turned on the TV. I had to double take and make sure the booze wasn't addling my eyesight. But no, there it was, a map of the town I grew up next to, with the wording along the bottom reading "two soldiers shot dead". Growing up, as inappropriate as it may have been, this kind of headline barely registered with me, a by-product of being born and bred in the heart of the Troubles.

But now, after a decade of normality, the sickening realism of the situation is all too apparent. It's awful enough seeing pictures from the other side of the world of terrorist atrocities, but when it happens in your own backyard it really hits home. That said, whilst the events in Antrim overnight have been rightly dominating the rolling news coverage today, the 2nd story was of 28 people dying in a suicide attack in Baghdad. A much worse disaster, but one that the western media report more from a sense of obligation rather than any particular interest, such is the regularity of the attacks and - let's face it - the fact that Iraq seems very alien and far away.

I remember getting wound up with the coverage of the Pakistan attacks last week, as every headline led with the fact that 3 Sri Lankan cricketers got injured - mentioning halfway down column two that 6 local policemen were killed. Surely this was a much bigger tragedy than a sportsman being wounded?

My girlfriend had just texted that apparently one of the innocent bystanders seriously injured last night was Polish - one of the many people from that country in the UK doing low paid, low prestige jobs (in this case delivering a pizza on a Saturday night) to try and make a better life for themselves. And what thanks does he get? A fight for his life, hundreds of miles away from home, in a strange country with probably few friends and family to comfort him.

The whole thing terrifies me and makes me feel sick. Northern Ireland claims to be a civilised democracy, and yet, unlike the vast majority of people in the "developed world", part of society feels it has the right to go round killing and seriously wounding kids doing their jobs (be it soldiers or pizza delivery men) because the democratic process has come out and said that the vast, vast majority of people they claim to represent have told them in no uncertain terms that they're not interested in what they have to say.

How can you justify having support for your cause if no one votes for you at the polls? What's more, if you're that deluded that you don't make this connection, how far will you go to try and achieve your ends? It's encouraging that Sinn Fein have joined every other elected party in condemning the attacks - hopefully 99.9% of the population being united in pursuing peaceful change after 30 years of bloodshed will mean that the whole thing doesn't kick off again. Please?

Eurosport & Sundays - a match made in heaven

Just finished watching the Table Football World Cup (bit of a walk in the park for the USA in the final against a plucky yet ineffectual Dutch pairing) and now on to the qualifying round for the Brazilian World Touring Car race. In which Lada have a team. There's a whole world out there I never knew existed.

Good to see there's life after Hollyoaks

Wondered what the incessant annoyance coming from the TV was this evening. Imagine my surprise when I looked up and discovered erstwhile Hollyoaks freakshow Toby has got himself a job as the world's most overly-enthusiastic carpet salesman.

It's undoubtedly a nice piece of serendipity that he happens to have been working at the very store where they decided to film the advert. Maybe it's a reward for being top customer adviser in the northwest or something.

Carpet Right Sale Ex..
Watch the ad...

Richard and Judy never called. Harumph.

On my own for the next 6 days as J is off home. Have spent the entire night leading Coventry City to the top of the Coca Cola Championship on the Playstation. Who says I don't know how to have fun on my own?

A star in the making

I got an email today from the production company that makes "Richard & Judy". They want to talk to me after seeing my video of the Rick Astley flash mob on You Tube.

Finally, my genius as a film maker has been recognised. You can see the BAFTA-nominated short below - note the gritty realism and camera work reminiscent of the Dogma school of independent film making practiced by celebrated Danish director Lars von Trier.

I actually have no idea why they want to speak to people who were at the RickMob last April at Liverpool Street station. I can imagine it probably has something to do with T-Mobile's shameless ripoff of the concept for their latest advert - yet another bit of fun which brought a few people together in unfriendly London which has been hijacked by a corporate beast for its own ends.

I'm not sure I remember very much about the event to be honest - except that the participants missed the point a little in that no one knew the lyrics. I certainly don't have much to contribute to a conversation with His Madeley-sty, but am sure I could bullshit if it were to get me on national telly.



Will keep you posted if I hear anything back. This could be my big break into the media, a mere 9 years after being asked in a pub to go to an audition for a new T4 presenter! Just think, I could have been Steve Jones. I'm sure the girl wasn't just asking everyone she saw to go along. She obviously saw something in my hungover shuffle which screamed "telly's newest heart throb". In a way, the fact I never bothered going along has turned into a positive, in that I can sit here and be quite clear about the absurdity of being approached, whilst secretly thinking that maybe I might have ended up as a rich, successful media type. Honest.

First anniversary

Yes, I am celebrating. This time, a whole week ago, I was smoking the last cigarette in the pack. Today, I sit, proud and glowing with health and vitality, after 7 days without a fag. It's not been too awful so far, except for craving a smoke at every point of every day when I would normally been having one. Goddamn my religious devotion to routine.

I had quite a heavy weekend as it happened, and came through it unscathed - from a smoking point of view anyway. Unfortunately, it would appear that I was attributing rather more of my regular hangovers to tar than was entirely accurate. After overdoing it watching the rugby on Saturday and easing my pain with a few hairs of the dog yesterday, my entire throat felt like I'd been licking an ashtray today. I'm the first to admit that this doesn't sound completely beyond the realms of possibility - some kind of bizarre sleep-licking - but I'm pretty confident I haven't been stealing out in the middle of the night to snuffle around bins like some kind of feral crack addict.

I can only hope that my body has yet to expel the nastiness from my lungs, which is causing me to still feel like I have a 20 a day habit. I'm going to stick with it - bought week 2 of patches this afternoon - in the hope that things improve. I don't like the thought of having to go through the rest of my life as the kind of person that couldn't do something due a lack of willpower. Not very Alpha male, is it?